Bill fontenot
Local naturalist Bill Fontenot will be speaking at our ABK Acadiana meeting this month.
Since 1986 Bill Fontenot has dedicated his career in biology to reacclimatizing humans to their natural surroundings and restoring ecological integrity in lands from the smallest urban gardens to the largest wildlife management areas.
In 1980 he received an M.S. in freshwater fish ecology from the University of Louisiana at Monroe. From 1980-82 he spent time in the PhD program in Biogeography at the University of Alabama. In 1986 he began his ecological consulting career at the Lafayette Natural History Museum. In 1987 he was appointed Curator of Natural Sciences and manager of the Acadiana Park Nature Station, where he retired in 2008.
Since 1987 he has also operated his own wildlife management, “wildscape” design, and ecological consulting business, specializing in ecological assessment, biological inventory, land-use planning and management, and wildlife-friendly native plant-oriented landscape planning. His consulting work has taken him to hundreds of sites throughout the midwestern and eastern U.S., serving wildlife management and conservation agencies, landscape designers, community planners, ecotourism interests, and private landowners.
As a professional naturalist, Fontenot has led thousands of guided tours, and has consulted and lectured at many institutions throughout the eastern U.S. He has volunteered his field biology skills for numerous agencies and groups including the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Louisiana Department of Wildlife & Fisheries, Louisiana Ornithological Society, and Louisiana Native Plant Society.
He has published many natural history-related articles in various newspapers, newsletters, magazines, tourist information guides, and scientific journals. He has authored/coauthored a number of books and publications including Native Gardening in the South (1992), A Cajun Prairie Restoration Chronicle (1995, with Drs. Charles Allen and Malcolm Vidrine), Gulf Coast Birds (2001, with Brian Miller), Louisiana Birdwatching (2004, with Bill Thompson III), Vanishing Before Our Eyes (2006, with Dr. Wylie Barrow, Jr.), Wings Over The Wetlands (2008), Watching a Forest Grow (2008), and Audubon’s Louisiana (2021, with Richard Condrey). After contributing a weekly nature column in the Lafayette, Louisiana Sunday Advertiser newspaper for 23 years, he now produces a nature blog at https://www.facebook.com/thenaturedude .
He has served as a member of the Louisiana Ornithological Society’s Louisiana Bird Records Committee, The Louisiana Nature Conservancy’s Technical Advisory Board, and as President of the Louisiana Native Plant Society, President of the Louisiana Ornithological Society, Director of the Gulf Coast Native Plant Conference, and Program Director for the Cullowhee, North Carolina Landscaping with Native Plants Conference.
In 2001, Fontenot was honored in receiving the Louisiana Wildlife Federation’s Professional Conservationist of the Year award. In 2009, he received the Louisiana Ornithological Society’s President’s Award, and the Louisiana Native Plant Society’s Karlene DeFatta Award for service to those organizations. In 2011 The Cullowhee Gardening with Native Plants Conference honored him with the Tom Dodd, Jr. Award of Excellence. The Louisiana Master Naturalist Association bestowed the Caroline Dormon Outstanding Louisiana Naturalist Award upon him in 2021.
You may join in person or remotely via zoom:
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86401378711?pwd=aTSlR8ulhFGvBuLCbt5RaNGFOEY8Yd.1
Meeting ID: 864 0137 8711
Passcode: 707513
Pack and Paddle Outpost
101 Lucien St. Lafayette, LA
*Monthly Meetings held on the3rd Monday of every month.
**There will be no meeting in December
